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intelligentaboriginal Media
Intelligent Aboriginal Commentary.
Howard Zinn at The Progressive:
On this July 4, we would do well to renounce nationalism and all its symbols: its flags, its pledges of allegiance, its anthems, its insistence in song that God must single out America to be blessed.
Is not nationalism—that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder—one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred?
These ways of thinking—cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on—have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.
National spirit can be benign in a country that is small and lacking both in military power and a hunger for expansion (Switzerland, Norway, Costa Rica and many more). But in a nation like ours—huge, possessing thousands of weapons of mass destruction—what might have been harmless pride becomes an arrogant nationalism dangerous to others and to ourselves.
Enron thief Ken Lay was found dead apparantly from a massive heart attack. Or was it something else? Yes, he was convicted of fraud and all that, but was he going to "sing" in an attempt to avoid actual incarceration? Hmm...
In better jail news, activist Rob "Los Ricos" Thaxton was released after seven years of political struggle from within the American penal system. For a country that claims not to detain political dissidents, this man has been an incredible embarassment to teh establishment. Especially since h has not changed his views.
North Korea is feeling the heat after launching several missiles in a test yesterday. The odd thing is if it was Israel or Austrailia or some other White-dominated colonial government the U.S. would say nothing. And flag burning, is it ok if Americans burn teh flags of other nations? I wonder what the Senatorial quack Frist would say about this. On the other end, the Associated Press is saying something entirely different.
In the "Too little, too late" Dept., Cambodia has finally decided to try former members of the murderous Khmer Rouge after decades of inactivity. Since Cambodia first requested the United Nations for help in 1997, foreign adovactes have provided most of the impetus for the trials.
As the impotent UN Human Rights Council meets in its first ever Special Session to consider the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Amnesty International today reiterated its call on the UN to assemble and deploy a team of authoritative international experts to Israel and the Occupied Territories, with a mandate to carry out an independent and thorough investigation into the deteriorating human rights situation in the Gaza Strip.
Amnesty International also just yesterday condemned a trial by military tribunal that resulted on 16 June in unduly punishing prison sentences against evangelical church leaders Pasteur Fernando Kutino, Pasteur Timothée Bompere and Junior Nganda.
Ethnic and religious persecution masquerading as hatred against the ACLU. Jesus General finds this heartbreaking story about a Jewish family that is forced to move out of town because…they are Jewish. So the next time Jewish sections of New York decide to beat a Black man to death for "invading" thier sacred spaces, think of this.